Fashion month — or the back-to-back fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris — is underway once again. Hundreds of shows will take place before it ends, not to mention dozens of parties. And for every look shown on the runways, there will be others worth noticing on the streets outside the spring 2024 shows.
It’s a lot to stay on top of, even for veteran attendees. For those not sure where to start, the following collection of articles is a guide to the most memorable shows, clothes and moments witnessed by Styles reporters, photographers and editors during fashion month. New York Fashion Week may be over, but the European shows are still to come. We’ll be there reporting, reviewing — and adding to this list as we do.
Versions of a Post-Pandemic Wardrobe
In the two years since the pandemic lockdowns ended, fashion has been all over the map. But this season, some designers in New York offered their clearest vision yet for post-pandemic dressing. Vanessa Friedman, the Times’s chief fashion critic, called it “a hybrid look for a hybrid world.”
At Tory Burch, sleeves of no-nonsense suit jackets were sliced open to free forearms. Michael Kors showed empire-waist dresses with leotard tops and airy skirts. Lightness also characterized the clothes at Gabriela Hearst (a cotton trench with chiffon inserts hidden between its pleats) and at Carolina Herrera (a lemon yellow skirt constructed from four layers of tulle but no crinolines).
According to Vanessa, however, “no designer did more to crystallize the way forward than Willy Chavarria, whose genderless suiting deserves to redefine New York fashion.”
A Melting Pot of Fashion
The designers at New York Fashion Week reflect the diverse demographics of the city. There are titans and hustlers, stalwarts and upstarts, dreamers and pragmatists. And the clothes shown by many labels — Coach, Ralph Lauren, Collina Strada and Fforme among them — could be described as camouflage that nodded to those many identities, according to Vanessa Friedman.
Ekhaus Latta, Vanessa wrote, assembled a D.I.Y. army “in oily, touchable jeans, fuzzy knits and patchworks of transparent organza.” Proenza Schouler, she wrote, “focused on the essentials,” which included a jacket in duck-egg blue over low-slung trousers and a strapless cerulean blue column dress that ties in the back.
Other collections, though they had a clear identity, were less original. “It was impossible to see the battering-ram shoulders of the leather jackets and trenches” on the runway at Khaite, Vanessa wrote, “and not think of Saint Laurent from last season.”
Ten Years of New York Men’s Day
The 10th installment of New York Men’s Day, a showcase of men’s wear collections during New York Fashion Week, featured presentations from the labels Kent Anthony, which showed sharply outlined jackets with beaded hems; Raleigh Denim Workshop, which makes jeans that have been worn by Brad Pitt; and A. Potts and the Salting, both of which describe their clothes as genderless.
Guy Trebay, The Times’s men’s wear critic, said that the clothes didn’t exactly startle with breadth of vision or design chops. But the presentations did show promise, he wrote, by offering “a generalized sense that the juggernaut of consolidation, corporatized fashion and a diminishing bricks-and-mortar retail scene won’t be enough to deter designers.”
Anna Delvey Brings the Runway to Her Rooftop
As New York Fashion Week has transformed from an industry trade show into a pop-cultural event, runways have been set up at all sorts of unusual venues. But few locations have been as unconventional as that of the brand Shao’s debut show, which was co-hosted by Anna Sorokin (a.k.a. Delvey), the fake German heiress, on the rooftop of the East Village building where she is under house arrest.
Vanessa Friedman said the theory behind the venue choice was simple: “The fashion world would come for the novelty of gawking at the co-host,” she wrote. “And if they came, they’d have to see the clothes.”
But did the plan work? According to Vanessa, it did — “to a certain extent.”
For Ralph Lauren, a Proven Formula
The designer Ralph Lauren has said he has never liked fashion. And yet for 56 years he has been a player in the industry. According to Jessica Testa, a Times reporter of fashion news, Mr. Lauren has maintained his influence on American fashion through a combination of familiarity and desire. His spring 2024 show and the dinner that followed were the latest examples of this formula.
Both took place at a venue made to recall Mr. Lauren’s Colorado ranch, with a familiar faux-worn wooden framework and intentionally mismatched white chairs. And both were attended by desirable guests, including Julianne Moore, Jennifer Lopez, Diane Keaton and Amanda Seyfried, who, Jessica wrote, were “seated shoulder to shoulder like the world’s most enviable group of girlfriends.”
A New Designer at Helmut Lang
For many, the most the most anticipated show of New York Fashion Week was Helmut Lang, where the designer Peter Do presented his first collection for the label beloved in the 1990s for its cool minimalism. (Ahead of the show, Jessica Testa profiled Mr. Do.)
Vanessa Friedman wrote that Mr. Do had clearly done his research to prepare for his debut. “That, it turned out, was the problem,” she wrote. While his collection had “Helmut Easter eggs” — like flat-front pants, Crombie coats and lacquered jeans — it didn’t exactly propel the label forward.
As Vanessa put it, “These are clothes that fill in a wardrobe rather than redefine it.”
The Victoria’s Secret Show, Reborn
Among the first events at New York Fashion Week this season was a new version of an old spectacle: The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which had not been staged since 2018.
Instead of parading models down a runway, the lingerie brand, which has moved away from making clothes to attract the male gaze, showed a trailer for “The Victoria’s Secret World Tour,” a feature-length film debuting this month on Amazon Prime. The film, which showcases the work of four female creatives, is intended to be the final step in Victoria’s Secret’s quest to “become the world’s leading advocate for women,” as the brand has put it.
Vanessa Friedman gave a middling review. “It’s not enough, in the end, for a brand to simply say it stands for ‘women,’” she wrote. “It has to offer up a coherent point of view on women and what it thinks women need.”
Melissa Guerrero contributed writing.
